What have we achieved?

The PM Society’s Industry-Agency Relationships Interest Group main focus is to promote best practice in Industry-Agency Relationships.

We are proud of the achievements of the group in the first 5 years.

2025

  • In January we published the Procurement Strategies Guide: Ensuring optimal outcomes and the best value possible for all stakeholders. The decision to create a guide was made based on ongoing industry conversations surrounding the relationships between pharmaceutical companies and their agencies, as well as a procurement survey the PM Society released in 2023 that showed a unanimous need for new thinking. You can view some of the survey results in our previous article here.

This guide explains what a winning procurement strategy looks like, drawn from industry opinions and feedback. Through insights and actionable strategies, it sets out to navigate the evolving landscape, empowering both parties to forge more meaningful and efficient collaborations. We welcome your feedback and will be updating the guide later in the year

  • On June 3rd we held our first PM Society Summit – Has the pharma/agency partnership reached a critical inflexion point?  Over 50 leaders from pharma and agency (with a 50/50 split) debated this question, amidst mounting internal and external pressures that continue to strain collaboration. It was a forum for honest and transparent discussion which shed new light on a relationship that many believe to be at a crossroads. Read the meeting report here.
  • The second half of the year is currently focussed on building a movement as the PM Society leads the industry to develop a blueprint for the future pharma-agency partnership.

 

2024

 

2023

  • Are we in need of a new procurement professional’s Guide to the Galaxy? survey – We also conducted a survey of procurement practices, our second survey of this kind. Findings showed that in 2023 there was a tightening of budgets and an increase in the commoditization of agency services, as well as a plan to bring more agency services in house in some pharma companies.
  • PM Society begins collaboration with the Pitch Positive Pledge – The PM Society signed up to this and initiated a new annual award to highlight good pitch practice. The objective has been to get pharma companies to sign the Pitch Positive Pledge.

 

2021

  • Webinar: Virtual Pitching – A perspective from Procurement. To read the full event report, please click here.

  • We ran a survey to gather insights from pharma on pitching and on-boarding post COVID

  • The group helped judge two awards categories – Pharma Digital Partner and Pharma Marketing Pioneer

 

2020

  • Face to Face event: Maximising the agency & procurement relationship – February 2020. To read the full event report, please click here.

  • Webinar: Industry Engagement post COVID 19 – June 2020. To read the full event report, please click here.

 

2018 / 2019

  • We ran a survey on Pitch Practice – to read the results please click here.

  • New introduced a new category for the Digital Awards – Pharma Digital Partner

  • We added a new course to our training portfolio on “how to get the best out of your agency”

 

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